Archive for April, 2014

Posted by cool_ambo on April 30th, 2014 | Comments Off on U.S. Doesn’t Care About Ukraine

US doesn’t care about Ukraine, wants to prove it’s still in charge – Lavrov

(Published time: April 30, 2014 20:38)

Washington’s approach to the events in Ukraine is not fueled by concerns about the fate of the crisis-torn state, but rather by the desire to prove it is still running the show worldwide, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

The way the situation in Ukraine is reported in mainstream media indicates that “unfortunately, the information machine of our Western colleagues is working at full capacity,” Lavrov said following talks with his Chilean counterpart, Heraldo Munoz, in Santiago.

The US is trying to shape public opinion in a specific manner “because they are not concerned by the fate of Ukraine in the first place, but have strong desire to prove that it’s them who decides how things should be – always and everywhere,” Lavrov stated.

The foreign minister stressed that sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies are the result of such a stance, and will have a costly outcome for Washington in the long run.

However, Moscow currently has no plans to retaliate against the “meaningless” sanctions from the West, he said.

“At this stage, we want to give our partners a chance to calm down,” Lavrov said. “We’ll see what happens next. If absolutely baseless notations towards Russia will continue, if there are attempts to pressure us with economic leverage, then we may reevaluate the situation.”

Lavrov has advised the US to “discipline those whom they brought to power in Ukraine” instead of sanctioning Moscow.

He stated that despite declaring themselves “winners of the democratic revolution,” the current government in Kiev is based “on a coalition which includes candid radicals and extremists, condemned even by the EU back in 2012 when the Svoboda party first made it to parliament.”“But now the Europeans are shyly forgetting about that and cooperate with those same people,” Lavrov added.

The minister stressed the need to establish a direct dialogue between the coup-imposed Ukrainian authorities and protestors in the nation’s southeast in order to solve the crisis in the country.

“The role of Russia, the US, and Europe, or any other interested state, isn’t about blanching one of sides of the Ukrainian conflict,” he said.

Lavrov also stated that Moscow has made an attempt to establish a dialogue by proposing a ‘round table’ discussion between Kiev and representatives of the southeastern regions within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

“However, the US and EU representatives have blocked this initiative,” he stressed. “This is sad. We’ll continue to call for the full implementation of the Geneva Declaration, which our partners are trying to distance themselves from.”

As for the OSCE observers who are still being held by anti-Kiev protesters in the town of Slavyansk, Russia is “urging for them to be released,” Lavrov said.

Anti-goverment activists stand guard after storming the regional police building of the eastern Ukraine city of Lugansk on April 29, 2014 (AFP Photo / Alex Inoy)

“But we cannot decide for the self-defense forces,” he added. “Those people live under a constant threat coming from Kiev that the military and armored vehicles will be used against them; under constant threat from the extremists.”

Southeastern Ukraine has been gripped by ongoing protests, with the majority of its Russian-speaking population refusing to recognize the new authorities in Kiev, who took the reins via a military coup powered by far-right radicals.

Activists in Donetsk, Lugansk, and other regions have seized government buildings and are demanding a referendum on federalization.

Despite failing to provide any proof, Washington continues to blame Moscow for masterminding the uprising in Ukraine’s southeast.

The US and its allies have already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia, targeting individual politicians and businessmen, as well as several companies.

(if the U.S. is in charge, they really are making a mess of Ukraine. They should leave the people well enough alone.)

Posted by cool_ambo on April 30th, 2014 | Comments Off on Margarita Simonyan

5 very serious answers to 5 very serious questions from BuzzFeed

Margarita Simonyan is RT’s Editor-in-Chief.

Today I received some interesting questions from BuzzFeed reporter Rosie Gray. RT press office sent me the draft of the answers. They’re so funny that I decided to leave them here. Take them as they are, BuzzFeed.

?BuzzFeed:Do you regularly have meetings at the Kremlin or with Russian government officials? Can you describe them, if so? How much direct influence does the Kremlin have over what RT reports?

?I don’t have to go to meetings at the Kremlin because I already live there. My office is located there as well, as are the offices of all other TV executives in Russia. And RT doesn’t do any of its own investigating or reporting — we just read the latest Kremlin press releases on camera. It is much more efficient that way.

BuzzFeed:Why is your office apparently located on a different floor than the newsroom, as one employee told me?

No idea on which floor my RT office is, as I work straight out of my Kremlin digs. I’ve heard that it’s nice though.

BuzzFeed:Also, was Anastasia Churkina hired because of who her father is? Why was she allowed to interview her own father on camera?

All of our employees are hired based on the criteria of being Vitaly Churkin’s children. Anastasia Churkina interviewed her father because his other children were busy at that time.

?BuzzFeed:I’m told that RT Arabic is run by President Putin’s former translator — is that how that position was filled?

Indeed it is. Please note that the head of RT Spanish is President Putin’s former chef and the head of RT International is his former hairdresser. Presidential affiliations are the only credentials that matter in prospective candidates who are not fortunate enough to be Mr. Churkin’s offspring.

BuzzFeed:Based on the perspective of former employees…

Are you sure? It is highly unlikely you could reach actual former-RT employees as it is company policy to unleash the KGB on anyone who dares to leave.

Posted by cool_ambo on April 29th, 2014 | Comments Off on Worsening Crisis

The Ukrainian Crisis is getting more violent. Confrontations are getting more personal and less than at arms length.

I suppose Russia is going to be blamed for this again. But this is a popular uprising. What could Russia have done? Send its own police force? And afterwards be accused of aggression for crossing the border?

Elections should have been held a long time ago. It could have solved the problem.

The West should be glad that the protesters are not armed! Otherwise civil war could have started.

Posted by cool_ambo on April 27th, 2014 | Comments Off on Drone Hacked

Drone hack explained: Professor details UAV hijacking

Published time: July 03, 2012 04:10

Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (U.S. Air Force/Handout/Files)

Todd Humphreys’ tale about hacking a civilian drone in front of the Department of Homeland Security has gone viral since he conducted the experiment last month. Now the assistant professor at the University of Texas explains his work to RT.

In an interview with RT America this week, Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas at Austin’s Radionavigation Laboratory reveals that it only took a few researchers, around $1,000 in parts and some seriously smart software to send signals to an unmanned aerial vehicle’s GPS receiver, hijack the craft in mid-air and then have it do the department’s bidding — all right in front of Homeland Security agents.

“The navigations systems of these drones have a variety of sensors,” explains Humphreys, “…but at the very bottom is a GPS unit — and most of these drones that will be used in the civilian airspace have a civilian GPS unit which is wide open and vulnerable to this kind of attack. So if you can commander the GPS unit, then you can basically spoon feed false navigation information to the navigation center of these drones.”

By compiling several years’ worth of research into custom-made software, Humphreys was able to do exactly that recently — and right before the DHS. By 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration expects to have as many as 30,000 drones flying over the United States. According to Humphreys, though, the FAA might want to make a few changes before they roll out a domestic UAV for local law enforcement agencies to use.

“I’m a big proponent of bringing in drones to the national airspace. They are going to come and we might as well expect it. The question is, how can we bring them in reliably?” he asks. “And right now the dangers of bringing them in, before addressing this problem, is that someone on the ground could hack the drones and turn them into their own device, making them go to a different place or along a different path. So it could cause loss of life, it could cause collisions. But I hope that we can address the problem long before that happens.”

Humphreys explains to RT that he went into the experiment expecting a real challenge by hacking the drone’s GPS with a homemade spoofer device, but along with some students, he says he “worked hard to demonstrate that it was indeed possible, and perhaps within the capability of other hackers.”

“I think the vast majority of Americans are fascinated by drones,” he adds, “But there is a lack of deep understanding of the inner workings of the technology and perhaps of the safety threats,” which his team is now hoping to highlight by experiments such as these.

Also up for discussion, he stresses, is the issue of privacy.

“I’ve got some tall fences around the back of my house and I have a reasonable expectation of privacy when I’m having a barbecue in the back of the house, so of course I wouldn’t like to have any drone surveying me and my family as were having a barbecue, but I’d like to see these kinds of concerns balanced with the kind of economic benefit that drones can bring,” he says. “So whereas we’d like to welcome them in, we have to address problems of privacy. Now we have to address problems of safety before 2015 when the FAA opens these skies up to drones. “

(so, as I figured, these things can be hacked and controlled afterwards, like the MH370? Was the MH370 a demonstration or an experiment?))

Posted by cool_ambo on April 26th, 2014 | Comments Off on Ukrainian Secret Agents Captured

(AHA! The mission is to capture self-defense forces, torture them to admit that they are Russian soldiers, etc. etc. And thereafter the American State Department takes over by starting more lies!)

Three members of Ukraine’s special anti-terrorist unit Aplha have been detained during a covert mission in Donetsk region, amid the buildup of Kiev’s military near the cities controlled by pro-federalization forces.

Commander of the “Donetsk Republic” self-defense forces, Igor Strelkov, has confirmed reports that three members of the Alpha special tactical assault group of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) have been detained in the city of Gorlovka, in Donetsk region.

Their task reportedly was to abduct one of the self-defense force leaders, Igor Bezler, whose group is controlling the local police department in Gorlovka, but instead they were captured themselves. The prisoners were searched and blindfolded and brought to nearby Slavyansk, where their guns, documents and IDs as well as other belongings were demonstrated to the media during a press conference.

During questioning, the detained officers revealed that a special unit that has infiltrated the city comprised of seven men.

The captives claimed they had no time for any wrongdoing as they “just arrived” in the city and were getting acquainted with it and investigating approaches for fulfilling their mission, which they admitted was “invariably impossible.”

They did not say however who authorized the operation and was in control of it. They also did not tell where the rest of the group went after they split, or how many similar groups could be operating in the region.

One of the detainees hinted that they were afraid for the wellbeing of their families. “If I did something wrong,” he said, “I think nothing good would happen to my family.” Although there were no direct threats to their families, he said that was because the “mechanism was not launched” as they were abiding by orders.

The members of the Ukrainian armed forces will now receive the status of prisoners of war, Strelkov said, after which an attempt will be made to exchange the commandos for members of pro-federalization activists detained by Kiev.

The agents’ capture came amid an attack on a checkpoint near the neighboring Soledar city, where a group of unidentified gunmen was flown-in by a helicopter and in a blitz attack captured one of the self-defenders, forcing others to temporary retreat.

Earlier on Friday, self-defense forces in Slavyansk detained eight foreign military observers, which they are calling “NATO spies.” At the time of the detention the “people’s mayor” of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov said, the group had “cards with marks of all checkpoints” which he says “serve as proof of their intelligence activities under the guise of the OSCE mission.”

The detained team is indeed “not OSCE monitors” as widely reported, but instead was sent by OSCE member states in accordance with the 2011 Vienna Document on military transparency, the organization explained on Friday.

Despite the plea from Moscow and the international community to release the four Germans, a Bulgarian, Czech, Dane and a Pole, Ponomaryov has not acceded to the request yet, as he has not rule out that the group could be used in prisoner exchange for anti-government activists, dozens of whom have been arrested by Kiev’s coup-installed authorities over the last month.

The words of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, “SHOW THEM”, has become a byword in the propaganda battle between the U.S. and Russia. American media says one thing that the Russians did but in actuality it is the Americans who did it. Mea Culpa, mea culpa.

I guess none of them deserves to be canonized in this century, eh?

A little while ago, the State Department of the U.S. told the American public that Russian planes buzz Ukraine overheard. This would not be true of course, because the network CNN aired it. Believe it only if the RT.com airs it.

And again the Russian leadership and media echoes Lavrov’s famous words, ” Show Them”.

In reality, satellite images showed proof of Ukrainian military sending tanks to kill its own people.

At the end of last week, Gazprom shipped the first batch of oil produced at Prirazlomnoye deposit – Russia’s only project for the development of hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic shelf.
The Chairman of the Board of JSC Gazprom, Alexey Miller, and the heads of relevant departments and subsidiaries of company contractors attended the event. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally gave a command to start the shipment.

The first batch made up 70 thousand tons. The batch will be delivered to consumers in the north-west of Europe. A while back, Gazprom ordered to build two tankers for the project, Mikhail Ulyanov and Kirill Lavrov.

This year, it is planned to produce more than 300,000 tons of oil at the deposit.
The new sort of the Arctic oil produced on the Russian shelf, ARCO (Arctic Oil) entered the world market for the first time. The buyer is one of the largest energy companies in Europe; the product was sold under direct contract. The marketing of the new sort of ARCO was conducted among refiners in the North-West of Europe in the first quarter of 2014. After the volume of production at Prirazlomnoye deposit grows, a part of raw materials will be sold on the basis of long-term contracts.

The implementation of all manufacturing operations on the deposit – drilling, production, oil storage, preparation and shipment of finished products – is being provided by offshore ice-resistant fixed oil platform Prirazlomnaya. Design features of the oil rig completely exclude oil spill, storage and shipment in its production.

To pump finished product into tankers, a complex of direct shipment devices is used. The lock system activates in a maximum of seven seconds, which also helps to prevent oil spills. The platform is equipped with two of such mechanisms that are located on diagonally opposite sides on the platform – the south-western and north-eastern.

The place of shipment is selected depending on the direction and strength of the influence of natural factors – sea roughness, ice drift, currents and wind. Should the tanker move beyond the sector served by one complex, the tanker will be unmoored and moved to another system. To exclude inadvertent collision with the platform, the tankers are outfitted with dynamic positioning, which allows to keep vessels in place, despite the impact of wind and waves.

With Prirazlomnoye deposit in the Arctic shelf, Gazprom opened a new stage in the development of the Russian oil industry. First oil from Russia’s Arctic shelf, first oil from Prirazlomnoye deposit has been loaded and will be delivered to consumers. The first shipment also marked the start of the process to return investment in the Prirazlomnoye deposit, said Miller.

Prirazlomnoye field is an Arctic offshore oilfield located in the Pechora Sea, south of Novaya Zemlya, Russia. The field development is based on the single stationary Prirazlomnaya platform, which is the first Arctic-class ice-resistant oil platform in the world.

In September 2013, the oil platform found itself in the center of an international scandal with the participation of Greenpeace activists, who attempted to board the platform with a banner “Don’t kill the Arctic.” The activists were arrested, charged with piracy, but then released under amnesty law.

Hokay, Japan is not a problem, but it HAS a problem. It is with its cars.

Its cars, however, are not problematic by themselves. In reality, Japan’s problem with its cars is that they are so popular that the tariffs imposed on them by a foreign country is a little too big. The taxes on them are also getting a little unbearable because competition is getting too close to surmount.

Crimea is its solution. This region is the inroad to Russia and Ukraine, and that part of the world which has only Lada as the common model of cars to own. Now Crimea, as I foresee it, would be a free trade zone in the future, with infrastructures, fast food restaurants, theaters, and the like. A bridge to the Mainland Russia is about to be built. And before Crimea opens up ti the world, my guess is that there will be an international expo or even a car show. The problem that Crimea presents is merely the time that it will open its doors to the international world.

Japan should get into this Crimean world, not merely as a car distributor but as an investor or a business partner with the Russian Federation. They should think about it. Japan will have the opportunity to own part of the business in the oil explorations of Russia. These explorations are huge, extending from the Arctic to Astrakhan. Japan would no longer worry about a steady supply of oil, or that commodity which they fought a World War for, and got hit with two atom bombs as a consequence.

Sakhalin is a thorn in the relationship with Russia. Both claim ownership of the island. A compromise could be met regarding Sakhalin. Russia could build a base on the north side of Sakhalin, whether this base be an air base or a naval base. Japan would build hotels and restaurants on the south side for the rest and recreation of the troops in the base. Japan would then sport its most powerful weapons—the Sushi, the Sapporo, and the Mishima steak. Of course the Mishima steak, or the most expensive steak in the world, would come from the Mishima beef, which would come from cows grown on the island called Mishima. Which means that Japan would start an expansive agriculture in South Sakhalin, even as Russia would start an expansive nuclear submarine base in the North.

But there’s a catch to this. Japan must help in the development of the Russian auto industry and buy into the oil development as a stockholder,

A cool benefit of this idea is that Japan would be free of whatever contribution it has to ante up to the IMF for the bailout of Ukraine. Plus, a whole lot of Japan’s problems would be solved if it invests in the Russian enterprise, instead.

Posted by cool_ambo on April 25th, 2014 | Comments Off on Standard & Poor’s

They call this rating company Standard & Poor’s because if you are not rated on the Standard level of income, you are considered Poor.

Russia’s rating has been downgraded to something only above junk.

For that much account receivables from the Gazprom consumers, that rating has a funny ring to it. There is no other gas supplier in the world which owns that much money in accounts receivables. Besides, Russia do not deal with American financials lately.

Standard & Poor’s added that the rating will go up when the Ukraine tension descalates.

The Russian Central Bank increased its interest rate.

This would imply that the account receivables will increase its value further. Also Ukraine’s unpaid gas bill will also increase by the bigger interest. You broke it, you fix it.

It is still a wonder why Russia does not turn off the gas valves towards Europe.

Mr. Bundy speaks in the colloquialism of the region, even using comparisons which are thrown out of context and treated with literal connotations by those who are not accustomed to his lingo. He mentioned “negro” , not nigger, negro, but the word seem to have the bad connotation in some regions of America.

Now, faced with an interview with an articulate host, the son of a governor, and well-educated, Mr. Bundy tries to explain himself and his mode of communication to the viewers, even apologizing for his choice of words. He has not done well in this purpose, having difficulty with his vocabulary. The problem in this case is communication. People should have explained further why he is being taxed by the federal and not by the state. Throwing the book at him would be useless because he is actually not the bookish type.

But what struck me was something he said and which everybody should take notice. He said that America should have been matured enough after Martin Luther King in such a manner that the words “negro” and “slave” would never have to mean anything degrading anymore.

Posted by cool_ambo on April 25th, 2014 | Comments Off on John Kerry Attacks RT

(Lifted from RT.COM——)

John Kerry has attacked RT for its coverage of the Ukraine crisis, calling it a “propaganda bullhorn.” Neglecting to address the US’ role in the conflict or back up his assertions with any evidence, Kerry said Russia was behind the unrest in Ukraine.

During a press conference with the State Department on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry rounded on RT, lashing out at its Ukraine coverage.

“The propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored RT program has been deployed to promote – actually, RT network – has been deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground,” Kerry said. Furthermore, he said RT almost spends all its time “propagandizing and distorting what is happening, or not happening, in Ukraine.”

Dismissing the entire eastern Ukrainian, anti-Maidan movement as sponsored and controlled by Moscow, Kerry did not address allegations of American involvement in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that America was “running the show in Ukraine” and referenced the visits to Kiev of CIA head John Brennan and Vice-President Joe Biden.

Lavrov decried John Kerry’s latest comments about RT as “uncivilized” and “prosecutorial.”

“[The West] was convinced for some time that it had a full monopoly on mass media,” said Lavrov in a statement. “Russia Today has won a large audience in the US and Western Europe, not to mention in Latin America and the Arab world.”

The head of RT, Magarita Simonyan, also responded the Kerry, saying the channel was preparing a letter, calling from an apology from the State Department and asking for evidence to back up their assertions.

“We are planning to write an official request to the State Department for concrete examples of when RT has distorted facts,” said Simonyan. “It’s unfortunate that the head of the State Department knows so little about what’s going on in Ukraine at the moment.”

Back in 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the US was losing a media war with up-and-coming, alternative outlets like Al Jazeera and RT.

“We are in an information war and we are losing that war,” said Clinton.

Previously, the US State Department had attacked Al Jazeera for broadcasting videos of Osama Bin Laden justifying the 9/11 attacks. They accused the channel of engaging in propaganda for terrorist and tried to get the emir of Qatar to shut it down.

Kerry’s statements follow a flurry of anti-Russian rhetoric from Washington and when it comes to the facts – it’s not the first time broad statements without any factual backing have come out of Washington.

RT correspondent Gayane Chichikyan was shot down by State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki when she asked about the launch of Kiev’s anti-terror operation which coincided with Vice President John Biden and CIA head John Brennan’s visit. Psaki accused Chichikyan of repeating “ludicrous claims” by the Russian government and refused to answer the question.

Psaki treated RT’s Anastasia Churkina in a similar manner back in March when asked to clarify American assertions that Russia had “shot first” in a fight at a Ukrainian military base in Crimea on March 17 that left two people dead. Psaki cut Churkina short with a swift “I think we’re ready to move on” and refrained from answering the question.

Russia has called the coup-appointed government in Kiev “illegitimate” and accused it of instigating anti-Russian policies and alienating the east of the country, which is largely Russian-speaking.

(the truth must be crimping their styles. but hey, look at the bright side of things. Kerry has just declared RT as the official media rival. pat-on-the-back!)